“Lieutenant Katsuragi, give me a damage report. Lieutenant, wake up!”
“I hear you. Running diagnostics now… Flight systems are all green,” he answered, breathing rapidly.
“Fix the cabin environment.”
“The defogger’s running. Current position: unknown.”
There must have been a sudden, temporary loss of pressure in the cabin, Rei thought. That was the cause of the mist. Thinking the canopy might have been blown off, Rei rolled Yukikaze through one turn, confirming her flight responses as well as trying to determine which way was up. Even so, his instruments weren’t telling him anything. Not knowing which way was up, he reversed the roll in case he’d unexpectedly changed course during the initial one.
The alarm indicated TARGET PLANE LOST. Canceling it, Rei checked to see if the wide area search radar was still operating.
Lieutenant Katsuragi noticed that the barometric and radar altimeters were now at wide variance in their readings, way more than the usual measurement error. He looked out the now-clearing canopy to see which reading was more accurate. He had a feeling that both were probably wrong. Yukikaze was flying nearly level, very close to the ground.
It was a strange scene. Dim, with thick clouds spreading overhead as far as the eye could see. Below them was exactly the same. The lieutenant suddenly realized that the “ground” below them was just another cloud formation. Yukikaze was flying through a clear layer between two thick cloud banks above and below. Far ahead of them on the horizon he could see a band of blue light, probably a break in this sea of clouds. Craning his head around to make sure that Yukikaze’s tail stabilizers hadn’t been damaged, he saw that the brightly shining gap extended completely around them. It was colored red behind them. Katsuragi’s entire field of view showed only a ring of light, sandwiched between two layers of clouds.
“No visible damage to the wings. Current altitude is around three thousand meters, and I don’t think this is Faery’s environment, either,” Lieutenant Katsuragi informed Rei. “I think this is some sort of artificially created space. Our altimeter readings are unreliable here.”
“Yeah,” replied Rei. “There’s also a huge cloud layer above us that reflects back radio waves.”
“Holy shit…” Katsuragi murmured. The clouds above and below weren’t so much like the ground than gigantic walls, with this clear area suspended between them. “This is a spatial pathway the JAM use to transport themselves around Faery.”
“Maybe.”
“If we keep flying, will we come out of it, Captain Fukai?”
“I don’t know, but I think we’re going to make contact with the JAM before we leave here. Keep your eyes peeled.”
The engines were running smoothly, but there was no real sense that they were moving forward. It was quiet. The situation was bizarre, but Rei was relieved to see that Lieutenant Katsuragi in the rear seat was dealing with it calmly and not falling into a panic. Yukikaze was silent except for the message on the main display, which declared that she was searching for the enemy. No doubt she was using every means at her disposal to search the skies surrounding them.
“Where’d the target plane disappear to?” Lieutenant Katsuragi asked. “It looks like it didn’t come in here with us.”
“You’re probably right, seeing as it’s not here. It was probably just sent to guide us in,” Rei replied.
“Did you know this was going to happen?”
“Are you asking me if I knew beforehand that we’d be lured into this weird space?”
“Well, that too…”
“You said before that this is an artificially created space. How do you know that?” Rei asked.
“Because I doubt anything like this would exist naturally. If the JAM control it, then it stands to reason that they created it too.”
“That’s a cool assessment to make.”
“What are you planning to do here, Captain?”
“Learn what the JAM’s intentions are,” Rei said. “That’s why the SAF put this operation in motion, although the JAM seem to have made the move before we could. I guess you could say we got our wish. Saves us a bunch of work, this way.”
“Did the SAF get some overtures beforehand that the JAM would be open to contact like this?” Lieutenant Katsuragi asked.
“It’d be natural to think that.”
“To think? Are you avoiding the question?”
“You don’t work for Colonel Rombert anymore, meaning you have no right to cross-examine me. Keep your position in mind, Lieutenant.”
“I’m just asking out of personal curiosity, Captain.”
There’s a way of asking things when you genuinely just want to know about them, Rei thought. Still, as much as the way Katsuragi was doing it rubbed him the wrong way, Rei figured he’d sound much the same if he were in the lieutenant’s place. Rei snorted out a laugh as he thought about it. The lieutenant’s questions weren’t about some duty to figure out what was going on. He really was a lot like Rei in that regard. Besides, Rei had a feeling that Katsuragi was going to get nervous if he didn’t have something to talk about.
“What’s so funny?”
“You just remind me of when Colonel Rombert interrogated me. But yeah, you aren’t him. Just go on, Lieutenant.”
“If you people did receive overtures from the JAM before, then that’s a serious matter,” Lieutenant Katsuragi said. “The other units in the FAF don’t know that, do they? Is the SAF trying to set up some sort of private arrangement between itself and the JAM?”
“Overtures were made in advance,” Rei replied coolly. “But to Yukikaze, not us humans. If that weren’t the case, Yukikaze wouldn’t have told me not to attack and that she was going to try communicating with the JAM.”
“Oh… Is that what that was all about.”
“The SAF theorized that the JAM wanted to make contact with Yukikaze because she made that prediction herself shortly before we left on this sortie.”
Yukikaze performed unmanned sorties several times before now, and it’s possible the JAM had made their overtures to her each time, Rei thought. That was how she knew that the JAM desired to “receive” them. He could imagine that the JAM had made clear their conditions for contact with them—she had to be piloted, not unmanned.
“That’s why I was prepared for this,” Rei continued. “But I don’t know what the JAM are going to say to us. Is that good enough for you, Lieutenant?”
“What do you plan to say to the JAM?”
“I want to ask them what they think I am.”
“And after that?” Katsuragi asked.
“Why, out of all the other planes in other units, they want to make contact with Yukikaze. I want to know what they think she is too.”
“Do you only care about you and Yukikaze, Captain Fukai? There have to be more important things to ask them.”
“Like what?”
“Like why the JAM invaded in the first place. That’s what the SAF and the FAF both want to know. Are you serious? Do you really fly Yukikaze for such personal reasons?”
“Yeah,” Rei said. “What about it? Is it wrong to?”
“Is it wrong? That answer is so disgusting, I don’t even know where to begin,” the lieutenant replied.
“That’s not how you really feel about it,” Rei said.
“How do you mean?”
“It’s not that you aren’t answering me out of disgust. It’s because you don’t know how to judge my answer and you don’t understand how you feel about it. You don’t have a personal question to ask the JAM, and that disgust you claim to feel only comes from your being a soldier in the FAF. You’re acting the way you think a good soldier should, but you don’t really care. So do me a favor and stop trying to impress me.”